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In her ten years of working for the adventurers guild, she’d never come across a situation quite like this. How, exactly, was she supposed to deal with this? Oh, she’d seen plenty of odd things in her time here - like the time a novice adventurer had accidentally released a large, very angry and very much alive manticore. Oh, the time and effort it had taken to clean up that particular mess. She still got the shudders even just thinking about it. And there were even worse things that haunted her dreams and forced her awake, screaming.
The sound of a hiss brought her back to the present with a bump. Ah, right. Yes. Okay. She still had to deal with this. Whatever...this was. Oh, she knew what the creature standing in front of the desk was. She just wasn’t entirely sure why it was here, of all places. She knew they liked to hoard things, but what did it want? Why had it chosen today, of all days, to calmly stroll in here? And why was she the one to deal with it? Taking a deep breath, she shuffled a few papers on the desk, then looked up, remembering to smile as she did so. Not that she really felt like smiling. Nor did she feel particularly brave. After all, it wasn’t every day that a four meter long dragon walked into the building.
“Can I help you...sir?” Come to think of it, she wasn’t entirely sure if it was male or female.
The dragon blinked slowly, pale yellow eyes, with round pupils, fixed on hers. There were a few seconds of silence, as it seemed to be thinking about what to say.
“I’d like to sign on as an adventurer”, it said, at last.
“Oh, of cour - pardon?” She wasn’t quite sure that she’d heard right. “You’d like to be an...adventurer?”
The dragon nodded. “Yes. I’m very interested in the gold, you see.”
Ah. Well, that explained it. Some of it. A very small part of it. Maybe.
“...I see. Well, I could sign you up. But...why? If you don’t mind me asking, that is,” she added hastily.
The dragon shrugged, ruffling up the elongated scales on the side of its neck.
“To tell you the truth, I’m bored. Oh, I could get gold the normal way, by stealing a princess. But there’s no fun in doing things that way. Believe me, I’ve tried it. The amount of gold I get in return for handing over the captured royal is paltry anyway. Certainly not enough for me. So, I thought I’d try something else. Find some employment. Perhaps that’s the way to get a decent amount of gold these days.”
She blinked. So, the dragon was here because it wanted a job? Bored? Well, she’d never heard of a dragon being bored before. In fact, this entire situation had never happened before. But still...could be fun. After all, the dragon probably wouldn’t need to join a party, and in fact, she might be able to send it on some of the higher risk quests. Dragons were, after all, very hard to kill. And the more dangerous a quest, the higher the pay. It...was insane, but it might just work. Of course, she’d give it some easier tasks at first, just to get a feel for how it worked, but still...still, there was a feeling that this might just pay off.
She looked back up at the dragon. “Alright, I’ll sign you up. However, there are a few things we have to go over first...”